Seafair@home

Online maritime education programme

During Lockdown the Tall Ships (Wales) Trust took full advantage of digital resources to connect with our communities via Zoom. With Welsh Lottery funding we created opportunities through our seafair@home programme which catered for youngsters new to sailing as well as seasoned adult sailors looking for a challenge during Lockdown.

We teamed up with Tall Ship and Sail Training Skipper Aidan Begbie from Sailing Tectona (the charity that currently manage Olga) and created a virtual sailing club for youngsters. Aidan coached the group to race their online dinghies in Virtual Regatta Inshore – an exciting online sailing simulation where you can race intense regattas in real time against sailors from all around the world!

For the adults, who were missing offshore sailing and with the Tall Ships Races cancelled due to COVID, the Trust introduced our community to the Virtual Tall Ships Race 2020 with http://sailonline.org/. We teamed up again with Skipper Aidan Begbie who coached our members so that they could skipper their own vessels and race against the large online community of fellow racers, all trying to master the powers of the elements and cross the finish line first. Races were played out in real time, following the exact same race routes and waypoints of the original route of the postponed races and subject to the actual weather during each of the three legs. It was fun, of course,  and absolutely compelling but the experience of Skippering an electronic boat deepened our understanding of Chart Plotting and honed our electronic navigation skills.

We are planning more sessions in the Autumn. Details coming soon.